Mexico continues to be a positive business proposition for many companies. However there’s no doubt that it is becoming increasingly more challenging –and more costly –to mitigate risks to operations, supply chains and personnel there.
Consider this: Since 2006, more than 24,000 people have been killed in drug violence in Mexico, and as an article in The Dallas Morning News puts it: (more…)
Counterfeiters continue to infiltrate the global pharmaceutical supply chain, and increasingly now thay appear to be targeting high-value drugs, such as HIV antivirals and cancer treatments, according to FiercePharmaManufacturing.
In fact, in Germany, dozens of pharmacies are currently under investigation for suspected distribution of illegal and fake drugs, including painkillers, antibiotics and cancer treatments, as well as so-called “lifestyle medicines,” such as impotency drugs and bodybuilding products. This high-profile case seems especially troubling because, among other things, the pharmacists are alleged to have mixed illegally-acquired medicines with genuine product. (more…)
The food supplies of Afghanistan and nine African states are those most at risk and vulnerable to rising costs, based on results of the Food Security Risk Index 2010, released last week by Maplecroft.
The Index uses 12 criteria developed in collaboration with the World Food Programme to evaluate risks to the supply of basic food staples for 163 countries. These criteria include: the nutritional and health status of populations, cereal production and imports, GDP per capita, natural disasters, conflict, and the effectiveness of government.
Following these calculations, Maplecroft rated Afghanistan as least secure in food supplies, while also ranking the African nations of the Democratic Republic of Congo (2), Burundi (3), Eritrea (4), Sudan (5), Ethiopia (6), Angola (7), Liberia (8), Chad (9) and Zimbabwe (10) as “extreme risk.” In all, African nations make up 36 of the 50 nations most at risk in the index. (more…)
Global trade activity held steady in July –and that’s certainly good news. But does a “holding steady” trend like this signal a robust recovery? Panjiva doesn’t think so.
The latest report from Panjiva shows that last month there was a 0.2 percent increase in the number of global manufacturers shipping to the US market, and a 0.5 percent increase in the number of US companies receiving waterborne shipments from global manufacturers. In addition, Panjiva found that: (more…)
Most large US employers are moving forward with plans to make changes to their 2011 health care benefit programs in the wake of both health reform and expected large health benefit cost increases next year, according to a new survey by the National Business Group on Health.
The survey–which collected responses from 72 of the nation’s largest corporations representing more than 3.7 million employees –was conducted in May and June, 2010. The results show that: (more…)
